OTTAWA — Canada’s top court will not hear an appeal in a case involving a neo-Nazi leader’s web postings that could have determined the power of Canada’s quasi-judicial human rights tribunals.
Human rights complaint
On April 8, 2005, Richard Warman Warman wrote a detailed report on Internet hate in Canada for B’nai Brith’s Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents,[2] and has been the target of anti-Semitic smears himself, though he is not Jewish.[3] He received the Saul Hayes Human Rights Award from the Canadian Jewish Congress in June 2007 for “distinguished service to the cause of human rights”. filed a complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission regarding Tremaine, alleging he “engaged in a discriminatory practice on the ground of religion, national or ethnic origin, race and colour, in a matter related to the usage of a telecommunication undertaking” in violation of the Canadian Human Rights Act.[4] In late April the University of Saskatchewan, where Tremaine had been working as a sessional lecturer in Mathematics, received a fax from Richard Warman concerning Tremaine and detailing the complaint against him. As a result Tremaine was let go by the university.[3]
Regina’s Terry Tremaine, the head of the National-Socialist Party of Canada and a former university math lecturer, was found in contempt of court by the Federal Court of Appeal in November 2011 for refusing to remove web postings he made about blacks, Jews and First Nations people.
He had previously flouted a ruling by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal that found his postings were hate speech and ordered that he stop posting discriminatory messages and pay a $4,000 fine.
The tribunal, like other similar bodies that operate in parallel with Canada’s criminal and civil law systems, can impose financial penalties and even jail time, but its powers to enforce rulings are limited.
The November decision gave tribunals the full weight of the law, and it now stands as the final word on the case.
That was a point not lost on Tremaine, who declined to remove his Internet postings.
Tremaine claimed that the tribunal had no power to enforce the ruling.
He was then found in contempt of court, and his appeals argued that the commission’s quasi-judicial status meant it was not technically court he could be in contempt of.
“My purpose in ignoring the cease and desist order was to address the urgent matter of impending white extinction,” he said.
The National-Socialist Party of Canada uses the Nazi swastika and images of Adolf Hitler to promote itself.
Until the rights complaint, Tremaine was a lecturer at the University of Saskatchewan, where he taught a first-year math course.
As is its custom, the Supreme Court gave no reason for its decision not to hear the case.
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